Irish Continental Group
today reported higher 2013 revenues and operating profits and the owner of Irish
Ferries said the better economic outlook has encouraged it to invest in a new
vessel on its Irish Sea routes.

Revenues rose 3.4% to €264.7m from €256.1m while
operating profits for the year climbed 13% to €30m from €26.5m.

ICG said last year passenger traffic rose by 1.6% to 1.568m while the number of
cars using its services dropped by 0.8% to 350,000.

Origin Enterprises,
the agri-food group reported lower revenues in the six months to the end of
January 2014 in its agri services division, but said it was raising its full
year guidance.

The company said revenues fell 8.8% to €517.6m from €567.7m due to both lower
global fertiliser and feed prices.

Ryanair today
reported a 7% rise in total passenger numbers for February, carrying 4.5m
passengers compared to 4.2m the same month last year.

The load factor - - the ratio of filled seats on each flight - - rose by 1% to
78%.

Ryanair: Very strong passenger growth in February: Dónal
O'Neill of Goodbody commented - - "Ryanair has this
morning released traffic figures for February which show passenger volumes up 7% yoy to 4.5m with load factor increasing 1pt to 78% as capacity increased
by 1% to 5.8m seats. On a rolling 12 month basis, Ryanair has seen passenger volumes grow
3% to 81.9m at a load factor of 83%, in line with recent months.

Passenger growth for the quarter to date has been stronger than expected. However, with no Easter in March this year, we expect volume growth to tail off
and end up in line with our Q414 estimate of c.14m, +0.5% yoy. Ryanair’s pricing
strategy and customer focused initiatives are having a positive impact on volume
growth in the short term and we continue to believe that the latter will have a
positive longer term impact on margins and returns. BUY."

Aer Lingus in its report on traffic
- - including regional operations - - dropped by 1.2% to 640,000.

The airline said long haul passenger numbers rose by 7% to 46,000, while short
haul passenger numbers were down 3.8% to 512,000.

The overall passenger load factor was 67.3% compared to 68.3% for the same month
in 2013.

Aer Lingus: Short haul traffic impacted by competition:
O'Neill commented - -"Aer Lingus passenger
traffic for February shows a continuation of the strong trends in long haul but a slight deterioration in short haul traffic, which we expect is as a
result of on-going competitive price. Overall mainline passenger numbers declined by 3% yoy with
long haul increasing by 7% and short falling by 3.8%. Load factor for the mainline
business was off by 1pt to 67.3% with long haul down 0.3pts to 64.7% and short haul down 1.3pts to
68.7%. Capacity for the month was up by 1.2% with long haul up 6.4% and short haul down
1.4%. Aer Lingus Regional had a very strong month, with passenger traffic up 12.3%.
Including the Regional business, Group passenger volumes declined by 1.2% to 640k.

The outturn on short haul is somewhat weaker than we had expected and is
likely a result of aggressive price competition from peers. However, we continue to
expect that pricing will improve as we approach the second calendar quarter and with
capacity in the market remaining tight over the summer, we remain optimistic on
the outlook for Aer Lingus and the sector over the coming months."

Conall Mac Coille, chief economist, Davy
comments: "The Italian and Spanish services PMIs were 52.9 and 53.7 in February,
both indicating expansion. The Italian survey showed the strongest rise in
business activity in almost three years.

The overall euro-area composite for both
manufacturing and services was 53.3 in February, the strongest reading since
June 2011, and indicating that the European recovery accelerated in early 2014.
In this context, expectations for aggressive action by the ECB at today’s policy
meeting have been pared back. Indeed, speculation on a potential rate cut has
dissipated following last weeks’ release showing CPI inflation at 0.8% in
January, stronger than expected.

The current consensus is for no change in the ECB’s key rates today. However, as
European banks have paid back LTRO loans in recent months, draining excess
liquidity from the banking system, pressure on lending rates such as EONIA and
EURIBOR has emerged. So the ECB could take action to reduce short-term borrowing
costs. This could take the form of no longer sterilising the ECB’s SMP
bond-buying programme, by eliminating sales of short-term interest-bearing
deposits to banks. That said, President Mario Draghi has indicated that the ECB
might look at buying securities of European banks’ loans to households and
companies. So perhaps more aggressive action cannot be ruled out.

Irish Live Register data for February showed the unemployment rate falling to
11.9%. This is down almost 2pp from the 13.8% recorded in February 2013 and
3.2pp from the 15.1% peak in February 2012. At this pace, Irish unemployment is
set to fall below 10% by the end of 2015. The Irish unemployment rate is now
below the euro-area aggregate of 12.0% in January.

The decline in Irish unemployment is not unexpected. The IBEC Business
confidence survey surged through 2013, indicating that firms expected to hire at
a faster pace. Similarly, yesterday’s PMI numbers indicated that Irish service
sector companies added jobs at their fastest pace in February since October
2006. Looking forward, we expect Irish employment to grow by around 3.0% in
2014. But the strength of surveys of companies’ employment intentions and the
continuing fall in unemployment pose upside risks to this view."